Some might think CD and DVD writers just aren't necessary in this day and age. However, I disagree. While I haven't written to this type of medium for quite some time, there are plenty of times each year when I pull out old discs or maybe even a DVD to retrieve some data.

Despite its name, Windows 11 is not always the best at window management, at least not without some help. I've long been a fan of PowerToys for giving me so much more flexibility when it comes to managing my open windows to improve my productivity with FancyZones, but the way snapping works may not be for everyone.

Every time I open Gemini, I have to type the same handful of prompts. If they’re too long, I grab them from Google Keep, but I still want to avoid that process. Even the short ones I retype every day get old fast. Gemini’s Scheduled Actions do just that. I can schedule the tasks that I keep putting off and just wait for Gemini to give them to me. That way, I can relax a little more, knowing that I’ll get everything I need because Gemini will remember for me.

For the past year, I’ve been running my own local LLM setup, hoping it would make my work faster and more efficient. And in many ways, it did; but not for the reasons I expected. I went in thinking better hardware would unlock better results. More VRAM, faster inference, bigger models.

I love my Kindles, but I've always had the lingering feeling that the hardware is capable of much more than what Amazon allows. The out-of-the-box functionality is so limited that you can't even set a wallpaper. That's a no-go for me. It's why I've taken to jailbreaking all my Kindles.

Google has pulled the plug on Project Mariner, an experimental feature designed to perform tasks for you across the web, as reported earlier by Wired's Maxwell Zeff. The Project Mariner landing page now contains a message that says: "Thank you for using Project Mariner. It was shut down on May 4th, 2026 and its technology voyaged to other Google products."Google first revealed Project Mariner in December 2024 and later announced an update allowing it to perform up to 10 tasks at a time. Over the past year, Google has integrated features powered by Project Mariner into its other AI tools, including Gemini Agent, which can do things like arc …Read the full story at The Verge.

Cinema equipment is notoriously expensive, and there's a disproportionate step-up in pricing from a typical camera lens to an anamorphic one that dissuades even successful YouTube creators from using one. I naturally grew curious about how these lenses contribute to filmmaking and photography workflows, but couldn't even find one to rent for less than $100 a day, much less use one long-term to figure out if saving for the lens would prove worthwhile. They add horizontal flaring around light sources, a gradual defocus away from the center of the lens, and the famed letterboxing hallmark of cinematic video.

Almost all of my work already lived in Google Drive, and the promise of Gemini that "just knows what's in your files" sounded too good to pass up. So, I decided to give Google AI Pro a try and honestly, the chatbot that requires constant feeding now functions more like a work memory that already knows what you've been doing.

I think one of the most exciting parts of technological advancement is when the high-end features begin to "trickle down" to lower product tiers. Sure, there's something cool about premium devices having all the flashy features, but as those same tools become more readily available, they become less of a novelty and more of a technological advancement that benefits everyone.

For years, my terminal editor of choice was nano. It came preinstalled on most of the Linux machines I touched, the keybindings were printed at the bottom of the screen, and I could open a config file, change a value, and be on my way. It worked, and that was about as much thought as I gave it. Neovim was always lurking in the background as a thing for terminal weirdos who'd memorized hieroglyphs, and I was perfectly content not being one of them.

I sat down in the Musk v. Altman trial courtroom today, painfully aware that no one was going to ask Shivon Zilis the question on everyone's minds: Girl, what the fuck are you doing?Zilis, who testified under oath that she is the mother of four of Musk's children, was… what's the best way to characterize this? A Musk advisor? She denies she was a "chief of staff" but says she worked for Musk's "entire AI portfolio: Tesla, Neuralink, and OpenAI" starting in 2017. The two met through OpenAI, and they had what she referred to as a "one off" before becoming "friends and colleagues." The "one off," she confirmed, was "romantic in nature."Her …Read the full story at The Verge.

It turns out Fox McCloud's appearance in the Super Mario Galaxy Movie was a tease of things to come: Nintendo just surprise announced the first new Star Fox game in a decade. The game is called, simply, Star Fox, and it's out very soon, launching on June 25th.Nintendo says that it's "based" on the classic space shooter Star Fox 64, but with redesigned characters and upgraded visuals. Essentially, it sounds like a modern remake of the game with the same level design. Based on the first look at the game, it looks thoroughly modern, with incredibly detailed characters, including a surprisingly realistic Slippy Toad. And yes, the in-ship bante …Read the full story at The Verge.